{"id":36147,"date":"2021-01-29T03:57:25","date_gmt":"2021-01-29T11:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=36147"},"modified":"2021-01-29T08:52:24","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T16:52:24","slug":"jewish-poland-in-1932","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2021\/01\/29\/jewish-poland-in-1932\/","title":{"rendered":"Jewish Poland in 1932"},"content":{"rendered":"

This photo, called \u201cGenerations,\u201d was taken by Tim Gidal in Tel Aviv in 1935. (courtesy Zack Gallery)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The current show at the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery, Invisible Curtain: The 1932 Polish Photographs of Nachum Tim Gidal, was organized in partnership with the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival, which runs Feb. 20-25. Gidal (better known as Tim Gidal or Tim N. Gidal) was a renown photojournalist of the last century and the exhibit\u2019s images come from the new book Memories of Jewish Poland: The 1932 Photographs of Nachum Tim Gidal<\/em>. (For a review, click here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The driving force behind the book\u2019s publication was Yosef Wosk, who wrote its preface. Wosk approached Zack Gallery director Hope Forstenzer and Jewish Book Festival director Dana Camil Hewitt about a year ago, Forstenzer told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cHe suggested we have a Tim Gidal show at the gallery to coincide with the festival and his newly published book,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Both Wosk and Forstenzer curated the exhibit. \u201cTogether, we chose about 50 images for the show, as many as the gallery could fit. It couldn\u2019t include all the images in the book, of course,\u201d said Forstenzer.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
A self-portrait by photographer Tim Gidal, taken in 1974. (courtesy Zack Gallery)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The history of the photographs is best described by the photographer himself in the book\u2019s introduction. In 1932, Gidal, then 23, traveled with two friends to Poland from his hometown of Munich, Germany. It was his first trip abroad. \u201cMy knowledge of the political, economic and social conditions of the Jews in Poland didn\u2019t seem to square with my feelings about their spiritual life,\u201d he wrote. \u201cSo I decided to go and see for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gidal, who passed away in 1996, took numerous photographs of people and places, as he went from shtetl to shtetl on his three-week \u201clittle odyssey.\u201d He wrote: \u201cI encountered spiritual and material heights and depths: material well-being and abject poverty, rejuvenation and dissolution. Some were rich, but many more were very poor. It was a hopeless poverty, endured with an incredible humility. I met men of faith and hypocrites \u2026 atheists, socialists and communists, Zionists and Bundists, Orthodox and assimilationists. We also experienced the all-pervading Jewish humor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Tim Gidal\u2019s cousin Gershon in the doorway of the family\u2019s rope shop, in Lowicz, Poland. The photo was taken by Gidal in 1932. (courtesy Zack Gallery)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Everything the young photographer experienced was reflected in his images, including those now on display at the Zack. We see children laughing and women looking far older than their real years. We see ancient eyes and tired, worn hands. We see educated men reading in front of a synagogue, and broken windows and peeling walls the next street over. And we know something Gidal didn\u2019t know at the time, which makes this book and the show all the more poignant: not many years later, most of these people would be murdered in the Holocaust, and they and their entire way of life would be lost. But, in Gidal\u2019s photos, his subjects remain alive. According to Wosk, \u201cEach photograph is a monument, a letter in light.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gidal\u2019s 1932 Polish photo essay comprises only a small portion of the master\u2019s body of work. His photography journey spanned almost seven decades and encompassed most major players and momentous events of the 20th century.<\/p>\n

One of the pioneers in the field of modern photography, Gidal made his debut in 1929 with his first published photo report. He was a proponent of the style of the \u201cpicture story\u201d and he captured most of his subjects unaware, instead of staging elaborate scenes. Very few of his subjects posed for his photos, and every image tells a story.<\/p>\n

Four years after his trip to Poland, Gidal moved to Palestine. During the Second World War, he served as a staff reporter for a British army magazine. A wanderer and a chronicler of life, he traveled a lot and lived in the United States for awhile. He taught and illustrated books. He exhibited widely.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Tim Gidal took this photograph of Buchenwald survivors arriving in Palestine in 1945. It is one of the images featured in the exhibit Invisible Curtain, on display until Feb. 25. (courtesy Zack Gallery)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A portion of the Zack exhibition is dedicated to Gidal\u2019s artistic photography after 1932. The pictures demonstrate his technical progress, as well as his breadth of interests and subjects. There is a lyrical photo, \u201cGenerations,\u201d taken in Tel Aviv in 1935 and another \u2013 a dramatic portrait of the youngest survivors of Buchenwald, taken in 1945 upon their arrival in Palestine. There is a photo of Mahatma Gandhi at the All-India Congress in Bombay in 1940 and the fascinating picture called \u201cHandshake,\u201d taken in Florence in 1934, which shows two men shaking hands in front of a wall covered with multiple posters of Mussolini.<\/p>\n

Half a century before Photoshop was invented, Gidal experimented with his images, compiling them in different combinations and creating something unique, like his triptych of Winston Churchill of 1948 or the Rhomboid photomontage of 1975.<\/p>\n

As a photo reporter, Gidal used his camera to record the 20th century in all its glorious and painful contradictions, and his early 1932 Polish photographs serve as a symbol of his multifaceted canon.<\/p>\n

Invisible Curtain opened on Jan. 5 and the exhibit will continue until Feb. 25. To see the show\u2019s digital equivalent, visit online.flippingbook.com\/view\/891736<\/a>. To book an appointment to see it at the gallery, email Forstenzer at gallery@jccgv.bc.ca<\/a>. To attend the virtual book launch on Feb. 11, 7 p.m., and to see the full book festival lineup, visit jccgv.com\/jewish-book-festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Olga Livshin<\/strong> is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This photo, called \u201cGenerations,\u201d was taken by Tim Gidal in Tel Aviv in 1935. (courtesy Zack Gallery) The current show at the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery, Invisible Curtain: The 1932 Polish Photographs of Nachum Tim Gidal, was organized in partnership with the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival, which runs Feb. 20-25. Gidal (better […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36148,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784,989],"tags":[974,4041,4242,53,5136,20226,940,2747,4582,20227,1434,40],"class_list":["post-36147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-visual-arts","tag-books-2","tag-cherie-smith-jcc-jewish-book-festival","tag-history","tag-holocaust","tag-hope-forstenzer","tag-invisible-curtain","tag-israel-museum","tag-photography","tag-poland","tag-tim-gidal","tag-yosef-wosk","tag-zack-gallery"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}